Potterella
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: He thought she just wanted to dress in a pretty costume and force him to play at one of her favourite childhood games. Boys were stupid like that.
1. Potterella

**This was written in honour of my darling friend Emily because she is the biggest Lily/James fan I have ever known. I love you, Finney. I love you tons.**

**Potterella**

James Potter had been living and breathing for seventeen years, seven months, two days, and an indeterminate amount of hours, minutes and seconds, when, due to a particularly stupid idea that had sprung from his mind and into fruition earlier that same say, he suddenly found himself suffering through the acutest form of embarrassment that he had ever encountered.

This was in his own estimation, of course. There was no telling what the classmates and teachers of James Potter considered to be some of his lesser moments in the brainstorming department. Certainly, some of his more sensible peers were of the belief that the boy embarrassed himself on a regular basis, and would not have seen eye to eye with James if they were to sit down and discuss the matter with him, although the boy himself would have been rather shocked to discover this. He had been blessed, or cursed, at birth, with a strange lack of awareness of just how silly he truly was, and this, coupled with an talent for arguing away even the most ridiculous of matters with a logical excuse, provided James Potter with the ability to live in blissful ignorance of his own lack of common sense. Unless, of course, unless he had taken it into his head to attend a costume party dressed as a luminous yellow banana, in which case, he really couldn't make any excuses for himself.

Unfortunately, in that instance, this was exactly what he had done.

It was a stormy Saturday night in October, two days before Halloween and on the eve of a Quidditch match in which James had participated in as captain of the Gryffindor house team and lead his gang to a rather thrilling victory. This was indeed a delight, and a delight made all the more sweet by the fact that Gryffindor's opponents in that match had been the much despised Slytherin team, their biggest rivals. The twenty-ninth of October also happened to be Mary MacDonald's eighteenth birthday, and it was for this reason that James Potter's post-victory glow was being tarnished by the bitter sting of embarrassment.

James had many things and many people to blame for his humiliation, and in his own opinion, he was certainly not one of them. The main culprit, he supposed, would be Halloween, for being so very popular amongst Muggles and forcing him into this situation. Then, there was Sirius Black, his supposed best friend, who had supported his dreadful costume idea; Remus Lupin, for not wrestling him to the floor and forcing him out of it; Severus Snape, just for existing, and Mary MacDonald herself, seeing as how she was the one who had decided that it was high time she threw herself a birthday party in the Gryffindor common room and make everybody come in Muggle costumes in honour of the upcoming holiday. It was all Mary's fault - Mary's parents' fault, even. James had idly considered getting drunk and writing them a sternly worded letter, only Mary would be sure to kill him.

If James _had_ been drunk, he probably would have been feeling fine and dandy, but he was sadly stone cold sober. Stone cold sober and dressed as a banana, which, as Remus had reminded him only seconds before the party began, shouldn't have been classified as a purely Muggle costume to begin with. As he had pointed out, wizards also ate bananas, but James had not listened, just like he never listened. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Discovering that he couldn't sit down in the costume had been a little irritating, as the match that day had been long and he was desperate to rest his weary body, but that hadn't been enough to ruin his evening. The realisation that he was unable to walk around the common room without hitting somebody else and spilling that person's drink all over the place had merely been amusing, in spite of how it had irritated his classmates. Catching sight of his ensemble in a mirror and deducing that he did, in fact, look like a gigantic geek with a neck injury, had put him in the mind to find some Firewhiskey and perk up his mood a little. These events had all paled in comparison to the what had come later.

Half an hour after making his grand entrance into the common room, James had been unfortunate enough to bear witness to the sight of Lily Evans, object of his deepest affections, highly esteemed Head Girl, proud redhead, and all around fittest bird at Hogwarts, receiving a kiss on the cheek – uncomfortably close to the lips – from a horror of a bloke named Robert Harding. Harding was a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered sixth year prefect who looked manlier than James had ever felt in his life, and furthermore, it was widely known that he harboured a little crush on the pretty, green-eyed Head Girl. If that wasn't gutting enough, Harding had come to the party dressed as James Bond, who was only the greatest hero to ever have existed in Muggle fiction – at least, that was what Peter had told him. Watching Harding approach Lily with such irrepressible confidence, seeing the smile that had spread across her face upon seeing him, and hearing him tell her to 'call me James' – that stung. It stung enough to ruin James Potter's entire night, and he was determined to feel sad about it.

Despite repeated pleas from Sirius, Peter and Remus, who had come as Zorro, Adolf Hitler, and quite ironically, a werewolf, respectively, to stop sulking and join them in enjoying the party, James had spent the better part of the last hour standing silently in a darkened corner, nursing the same revolting drink that Sirius had slipping something mysterious into earlier, and feeling quite sorry for himself in spite of the fact that he was far too old for such childishness. James was handsome, intelligent, wealthy, talented and popular by anyone's admission, he had no reason to stand in corners at parties with a puss on, and he certainly did not have any sort of claim over Lily Evans that would have made such sulking acceptable, but none of it mattered to James. If he was going to be miserable, he was going to be miserable with all his might and main.

Lily Evans was to James, in reality, nothing more than a chum, a pal, maybe even bordering on a friend. They had spent six insensible years butting heads and two sensible months working together as Head students, which was what had elevated their relationship to such a cordial status. Aside from the recommended amount of time they spent together fulfilling their assigned duties, they occasionally ate lunch together, and sat next to one another in Charms three times a week, as ordered by Professor Flitwick, who refused to allow James, Peter, Remus and Sirius to sit together under any circumstances. Lily and James agreed on very many subjects, disagreed on very many subjects, never ran out of things to talk about and made each other laugh. That was the long and short of it, aside from the very small fact that James was in love with the girl, and that the girl most certainly did not love him in return.

"Stupid ugly wanker," James muttered to himself, glowering darkly at Robert Harding, who probably would have been shocked to know that his violent death was being planned by the bespectacled banana in the corner. He looked down at his drink, a murky brown liquid that he was only sipping for want of something to do. "Why is she just standing there, hanging on to his every stupid sodding word? The bloke is a tosser, an ugly, wanking tosser."

James' animosity towards Robert Harding was, of course, due more to jealously than anything else. Certainly, the boy was not remotely ugly, nor was he the horrible fiend that James would believe him to be from that moment on. The problem with Harding was that there was no problem at all. _He_ had never had a long-standing rivalry with Lily Evans. _He_ had never tormented and teased her day in and day out until she had been forced to throw a book at his head and accidentally broken his glasses (Robert Harding didn't need glasses – he had excellent vision). _He_ had never hung her ex-best friend upside down by his ankles for sport. Lily Evans had never hated Robert Harding at one time because he had been a lousy, stinking idiot when he was younger. Robert Harding wouldn't know how to be an idiot because he was perfect, and perfect people weren't idiots. Harding had probably been born perfect. Maybe he hadn't even _been_ born; perhaps he had somersaulted out of the womb and landed with precision that would have made an Olympic judging panel wet their collective pants with glee. Maybe he had been created by the departed sprit of Godric Gryffindor himself and had simply burst into being some time sixteen years ago, amidst a haze of golden glitter and unearthly flames and a backing chorus of wing-backed angels. Maybe-

"Are you a soul in need, James Potter?"

James had been so busy casting dark looks at his drink and mentally murdering Harding that he had ceased to pay attention to what had been going on around him, which meant that when he was startled out of his thoughts by a sudden voice from out of nowhere, he jumped like a pansy and dropped the glass he was holding.

"I meant to do that," he said lightly, looking down at the shattered glass as the whiskey that had been inside seeped into the carpet and left a stain that his mother would have killed him for. "I know you like to think you're scary."

A stain in the carpet was an awfully boring thing to look at, but James would rather pretend it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen than meet Lily Evans' eyes and choke to death on animalistic lust, or something, which was always a worry when he was in her presence. She certainly made it difficult to concentrate at the best of times, and more than one had he found himself endeavouring to cover his crotch whilst in her presence, although that, thanks to the poxy banana, would not be a problem that evening.

"Heh," was Lily's unique and brilliant reply. "I happen to be the exact opposite of scary tonight. Perhaps if you stopped mentally undressing the floor, I could tell you why."

For the sake of saving Lily from back pain, he mumbled his compliance and looked up at her, hoping to Merlin that his face didn't betray how badly Harding's earlier behaviour had affected him. He wasn't feeling up to being nagged at for sulking. "Nice costume."

James didn't exactly know a lot about Muggle culture, save his in-depth knowledge of superheroes and spies, to decipher exactly what her costume was meant to be. Were he to take a guess, he'd say that she had come garbed as some sort of goddess.

She wore a dress of a silky white material that looked silver in some lights and pale blue in others, with a skirt that puffed out by way of some clever Muggle invention and came very close to being indecently short. Attached to the back were a pair of huge, fluffy white wings, and on her feet she wore pretty little ballet shoes. Her wand had been charmed a silvery white to match and had a large, glittering paper star stuck to the top. Her hair was long and flowing beneath a sparkly little tiara and looked more vibrant than ever against her light ensemble, while her eyes were emphasised by some dark, smoky looking colours that served to make her appear far more vampish than usual. The general effect of the ensemble was quite something, and so far above and beyond what constituted 'nice', James felt as if he was guilty of an outright lie.

"Cheers! I'm a fairy," Lily announced proudly, giving him a little twirl and sending a dazzling shower of glitter into the air.

"I've never seen a fairy who looked like that, midget," he pointed out, with a raised eyebrow, thinking momentarily of the tiny little stick figures that inhabited the Forbidden Forest. Lily, however, rolled her eyes at him.

"This is a _Muggle_ themed party, Potter, and I'm obviously a Muggle's interpretation of a fairy," she explained, and shook her wings defiantly, sending yet more glitter hurtling into the atmosphere. One of the surrounding students was going to fall victim to an asthma attack if Lily wasn't careful. "A Fairy Godmother, to be absolutely exact; that's why I came over here. I have duties to fulfil as part of my job description."

"Your job description," James repeated, not without some scepticism. He was wholly confused by the much-adored phenomenon that fairies seemed to be in Muggle culture. "To choke us all to death with glitter?"

"Don't try to be cutting when you're dressed the way you are, it falls flat." Point to Evans. "Fairy Godmothers look for people who need their help and assist them by using their magical powers. Basically, they grant wishes."

"Genies are supposed to grant wishes, not fairies," James pointed out. He knew enough about Muggles to know that, at least.

"You try finding a lamp that's big enough to fit me," she said, sending him a glare. "Anyway, I need somebody to play Fairy Godmother to and you're not doing anything besides standing here with a hump on about something, so you'll do, I suppose."

"I'm flattered you thought of me," he said dryly. "What about the twenty other people you picked first, were they all busy?"

"Nobody else around here looked pathetic enough to need a little cheering up," Lily replied, with a big smile. "Now, are you going to play or not?"

"You do know that I'm a wizard, right?" he said, looking at her with feigned concern. "Wizards are perfectly capable of using magic to grant their o-"

"Firstly, this is playing pretend," said Lily sharply, interrupting him before he could finish. "Secondly, stop being such a bloody killjoy, and thirdly, there are plenty of things that magic can't give you, James Potter, as you very well know."

"Like what?" James challenged her with a short, humourless laugh, in spite of the fact that he was undeniably dressed like a banana and therefore in no position to challenge, insult, or poke fun at anyone. "Unless I'm woefully uneducated and you know something I don't, magic can do anything and everything you need it to."

"I know many things you don't," said Lily calmly. "There are things that can't be gotten with magic, like love, for one thing."

"Love potion," James shot back promptly.

"No, no good," she argued, shaking her head. "You could always use a love potion but it's not the same thing because affection isn't genuine if it's not given freely. You can't make money materialize out of thin air using magic, you can't get people to do your bidding without breaking the law, you can't materialise food, and you can't-"

"Yeah, yeah," James held up his hands to shut her up, lest he be forced to listen to her babble on with a never-ending list of things that magic just couldn't buy. "You haven't heard the next part of my question, Evans. What am I supposed to wish for from _you_ that I can't get for myself? Last time I checked, we were on the same level where magical ability is concerned."

James could think of very many things that Lily Evans could do for him that he couldn't do for himself. Allowing him to tie her up and take her away to an exotic island where clothes were entirely prohibited was the first thing that came to mind, but he was fairly certain that Lily's desire to play at fairies wasn't a sexual proposition, and even more sure that he'd get a slap if he dared hint at it.

"That's for you to decide, isn't it?" said Lily, with a wry smile, one hand on her hip and the other twirling her wand around like a baton. "So are you playing or not?"

"What about your date?" said James, and tried not to sound as if he wanted to be sick. He failed, however, because he had never been particularly good at internalizing his thoughts concerning other idiot blokes who fancied his woman. "Won't he want you back in his slimy clutches in a minute or two?"

"My…" Lily's brow furrowed in confusion. "My date?"

James turned his head and looked in the direction of Harding, who was now sitting and chatting to a group of infatuated looking girls, his own personal fan club, and when he turned back to face Lily, she was wearing an expression of upmost revulsion.

"Robert Harding?" she said, and punched his stomach lightly, although his banana peel exterior bore most of the brunt. "RobertHarding? _Robert Harding?_ Christ, James, it's nice to know that you set such low standards for me, I feel so loved and appreciated."

The dull, gloomy feeling that had settled in his stomach earlier in the evening dissipated all of a sudden and the room seemed a whole lot brighter. He grinned, having momentarily forgotten that Lily wasn't supposed to know that the idea of her and Harding together made him want to stab himself with the sharp end of a quill.

"I take it you're not fond of him, then?"

"Christ, No! He's so… _blonde_." Lily's words were laced with disgust, as if being blonde was a crime for which no man should go unpunished. "And Merlin alive, _spare_ me from another _fascinating_ monologue detailing his life and many accomplishments. Has he ever told you about the time he went travelling to deepest Ghana with his parents and had the ultimate spiritual awakening in the face of dire poverty?"

"Um." James considered the Quidditch World Cup to be a spiritual awakening. "No?"

"Yeah? Well he bloody well told _me_," she spat bitterly, like this was all James' fault. Lily tended to blame a lot of pointless things on James, even now that they were mates. "Again and again and again and again. He spent two days curled up on a dirty bathroom floor with runny diarrhoea after eating some dodgy rice, and as a result he now believes himself to be understanding of the plight of the world's most needy, because diarrhoea is clearly just about level with poverty, starvation and death."

"I thought you said he was wildly fascinating a few weeks ago, or some other such nonsense?"

"Sarcasm, Potter. For the last time, are you going to play or not?"

"That depends, doesn't it?" Knowing that Lily wasn't as impressed by Robert Harding as he had believed her to be had flung him so far forward into the land of happiness that he was perfectly willing to go along with whatever ridiculous notion the stupid girl had taken into her head. Lily wasn't exactly known for her ridiculous notions, but James was rather partial to them when she did – they tended to be far more ridiculous than the ones that came frequently from some of the sillier people he knew. "How many wishes do I get?"

"Three," she provided promptly. "You have to use them all by midnight."

"It's nearly ten, though. I'll need time if I'm going to think of three really banging wishes. Can't you extend the deadline?"

"It's against Fairy Godmother regulations," said Lily, shaking her head. "You can take it out with the union officials, but they're very busy this time of year."

"No loopholes you can think of?"

"Well, you could wish _now_ for me to grant you a wish after midnight, but that'd still be a waste of a wish, all things considered."

"Bugger." He lifted a hand to run through his hair, realised that he was wearing a banana costume, and dropped it by his side again. "What if I were to wish for _several_ more wishes after mid-"

"Just make a wish, Potter," Lily snapped, as if she were about to sit him down and tell him off for being naughty. "I'm growing a beard waiting for you to make up your mind."

"Hang on a second," He protested. "You just sprung this on me, and I'm expected to think of a wish in the space of a second?"

"I'll give you a minute or two to consider it, I suppose," Lily consented, folding her arms across her chest and leaning against the wall. "I'll admire the general splendour of drunken Gryffindors while I'm waiting," she added, with a nod in the direction of some of her friends.

James snorted quietly at Lily's last comment, and looked around the warm, noisy room at the many other students who were milling about; the Muggle-borns and Half-bloods like Evans who knew what they were doing when it came to Muggle costumes, the small amount of Pure-bloods who had made fairly decent attempts, and all of the other ones who had, he noted, gotten it horrendously wrong.

Mary MacDonald had put a record on what once had been a Muggle record player until Sirius had gotten his hands on it several months ago, and a singer James didn't know was asking an unknown girl not to leave him, to a background of soft, romantic music. Some couples had paired off to stand swaying to the music while they kissed without restraint or knowledge of the many others around them. A fourth year girl was sobbing uncontrollably in the corner, surrounded by a gaggle of concerned friends. Some others were staggering about in varying degrees of drunkenness. Sirius was chatting to a group of girls with half of his Zorro costume missing, but otherwise completely sober, Peter was passed out by the fire, and Remus, in his full blown exaggerated werewolf getup, was playing a quiet game of wizard's chess by the window with Hestia Jones, who had come dressed as Pocahontas. Everybody else was too busy living their own lives to pay attention to the two Head students who were standing away by themselves in a corner.

"Are you going to think of a wish, Potter, or are you going to stand there all night looking gormless?" Lily suddenly barked, put out at being ignored. James transferred his attentions back to her, and grinned.

"Keep your hair on, woman. I've thought of one."

"I'm dying with anticipation," she remarked, tossing her hair and dislodging her tiara in the process. James laughed, and moved to fix it properly atop her pretty red head.

"I wish…" he said, resisting the urge to push her hair behind her ears and touch her face. "I wish I was wearing a better costume than this stupid banana."

Silence. Lily blinked at him. Then she blinked again, several times. A look he recognised well crossed her pretty face, one that he did not welcome. She was irritated. He had somehow managed to piss her off. This was not a strange occurrence, but he had been hoping her gracious mood might have prevented such an incident. He racked his brains in an effort to think of what his words could have done to upset her, but even as he did, she interrupted him.

"Are you serious, Potter?" she hissed, through gritted teeth, eyebrows raised, eyes flashing. Utterly bewildered as to her sudden change of mood, and unable to settle on whether Lily was hormonal, unimpressed by his wish, or if she really, really liked bananas, James could do nothing but shrug.

Lily sighed heavily, and smacked his nose with her wand.

"Granted," she announced, though the joviality sounded a trifle forced. She turned on her heel and stomped off in the direction of the staircases, glitter flying everywhere. "Come on, idiot."

James followed her dumbly, noticing all of a sudden that if she went up those staircases to the girls' dormitory, there was no way he would be able to follow without seriously injuring himself, not to mention the embarrassment a banana would suffer falling down the stairs and landing at the feet of several drunken students, some of which were in possession of cameras.

"Hang on," he called after her, unable to walk as fast as he would like, given his banana constraints. He caught up with her as she paused to allow a sickly looking fifth year to run past her up the stairs, presumably so the poor girl could find a place to vomit quicker, and laid a hand on her arm. "Where on earth do you think you're going?"

"Don't be so clueless, Potter," she said, shaking off his hand and beginning the ascent of, not her own staircase, but his. "We're going to your dormitory."


	2. Wish One

**Author's Note: You guys! I have love for you. I was so happy to wake up to such lovely reviews this morning! It made me giggle to see some of you speculating on what James' new costume would be, and I'm going to have to disappoint you because it's actually something quite boring. Oh dear. Someone left a review saying that this fic felt like a one-shot, which is namely because it actually was, to begin with. However, it was just far too long to be enjoyable as a one-shot, I think, and I much preferred the way it has been panning out as a multi-chaptered fic, too. This way I can give more attention to each of James' wishes. Tee he he.**

**This fic is still for Emily, who basically yelled at me to update before she'd even read chapter one. Have I mentioned to you guys that I love her? Because I do. Also, she is a total Betty and I am kind of dazzled by how pretty she is. Had we gone to school together I would have shirked away from her in the corridors and never spoken to her because she is just too beautiful to be as nice as she is, and I would have assumed that I was too much of a dork to be worthy of her attention. It totally does not compute, though, because she's amazing. Love.**

**Wish One**

"_My_ dormitory?"

In hindsight, James probably shouldn't have shouted up the stairs after her, especially since she was still only mere feet away. It attracted a lot of unwanted attention from the surrounding drunkards, including Sirius, who was watching the both of them with a knowing, filthy smirk on his face.

Lily stopped walking five steps up and turned around, rubbing the crease between her eyebrows with her finger, as though James was stressing her out with his obvious statements.

"Yes, Potter," she said impatiently. "Your dormitory. You _do_ know how to get there, right?"

James followed her up a couple of steps so that they were eye level and regarded her seriously, or as seriously as a man dressed in a giant banana costume could regard a sexy Fairy Godmother. "People are looking at us, Evans."

Lily spared a glance for the watching students, and shrugged. "So?"

"Aren't you worried about what they might think if they see us going up to my dormitory by ourselves?"

James wasn't exactly fond of the idea that Lily Evans could develop a reputation as a harlot, just for his sake. It'd only set him back a million years when the fallout eventually occurred and Lily blamed it all on him. However, she didn't seem to care at that very moment, in spite of the obvious murmuring and pointing that was going on below them.

"If you care about what a group of gossiping schoolgirls have to say about us," she said fiercely, taking his hand in hers and yanking him further up the stairs as she continued in her walk. "Then get off my lawn, Potter."

Hardly inclined to object to the girl of his dreams holding his hand and leading him _anywhere_, James protested no longer and walked with her to his dormitory. He desperately tried to remember if he and the boys had left the dorm in a really nasty state and what Lily would think of him if they had, whilst simultaneously worrying that his hand was going to get clammy and disgust her. When they walked into the room, however, it was thankfully not as bad as it normally was, and his hand was still relatively dry. Success.

"Where do you keep your clothes?" Lily immediately demanded to know.

"Um, Lily?" Not that James had a problem with all of the hand-holding that was going on, but he was a stupid boy, and stupid boys sometimes said stupid things. He looked down at their entwined fingers. "You're still holding my hand."

"Oh, _sorry_," said Lily, with a dollop of irritation and a hell of a lot of sarcasm, and dropped his hand, suddenly flushed and huffy. "I didn't know it was a criminal offence."

"It's not," he began, mentally flailing, and helplessly feeling like he was missing out on something he shouldn't have been. "I just tho-"

"Never mind," she snapped, and tossed her hair again. This time her tiara stayed firmly in position. "Where'd you keep your clothes already?"

"Er. Over there," said James, mystified, and pointed over to a chest of drawers that stood next to his bed. Seemingly undaunted by the prospect of rooting through his personal effects, Lily marched over to it and yanked the top drawer open.

"You're not going to find a costume in there," James remarked, stating the obvious, as Lily started to root through his clothes. He was still in the dark as to Lily's mysterious mood swings, especially when he hadn't done anything to warrant her disdain. Had they been fifteen again, and he had been bullying one of her friends or something, it would have made perfect sense, but now… "It's just a bunch of weekend clothes and school robes."

"Precisely," said Lily, taking the time to examine an old blue t-shirt of his before deciding she didn't need it and tossing it over her shoulder. "I'm going to dress you as a teenage boy who knows how to put an outfit together, a rare and beautiful thing."

"You don't think I can put an outfit together?" James asked her, genuinely mildly offended.

"No," said Lily bluntly, hooking a pair of underpants on her baby finger and dropping them hurriedly to the floor. "You've got some really nice clothes, but you wear them all wrong. It's the failure of your gender, I suppose, I can hardly blame you alone."

"Well golly, thanks a bunch," James murmured bitterly, folding his arms as well he could. Lily, however, ignored him and went on pulling clothes out of his drawer, and then throwing them violently away, for several minutes before she found what she was looking for.

"Aha! Now." She sighed with contentment when she pulled a dark coloured pair of jeans - jeans that James had only worn once since his mother had sent them to him, so vehement were her promises to end his life if he destroyed them because (she said) even with magic, mended clothes never look as good as they did when they were new – out of his drawer and tossed them on his bed. "You can put those on for a start. Christ, why do you have so many dull colours in your wardrobe?"

"Huh?" James quite liked his clothes. "What?"

"You shouldn't be walking around in earth tones and greys when you've got that colouring," she continued, not even sparing him a single glance. "You've got lovely dark hair and you tan so easily; you should be in reds and blues and bold, vibrant colours. Look."

Altogether jarred by her harshly-given compliment, James looked from the jeans on his bed to Lily, who was facing him now, holding a red, V-necked jumper out for him to look at. He assumed that she was expecting him to react to it in some way, even though it was nothing more than a regular old jumper that his mother had bought him once, so he merely shrugged. Lily sighed, and laid it down on top of the jeans.

"I can't imagine why you don't wear this more often, it's a lovely colour. Take that hideous costume off and put these on instead. Your runners will do for your feet."

She sat down on his bed and leaned back against the pillows as if she had no intention of moving from that spot, looking up at him expectantly. James' eyes widened behind his glasses; he hardly dared to believe what he was seeing.

"You want me to strip off _now_?"

"Yes."

"You mean, right in front of you?"

"Christ, Potter," she clucked impatiently and rolled her eyes. "I'm not asking you to get _naked_, and I'm hardly going to _get off_ on watching you divest yourself of a banana suit either, don't be such a bloody prude."

"No, it's not that," he floundered, feeling suddenly stupider and more pathetic than ever before, standing in this costume in front of the most beautiful girl he had ever met while she looked at him as if he were the most greatly annoying thing on the planet. Why was Evans calling him a prude? Wasn't _she_ the prude? Hadn't she once kicked Sirius in the unmentionables for dropping his trousers in the common room and announced that if she had wanted to see a boy's filthy boxers, she would have moved up to their dorm and lived a life of squalor? "Merlin, Evans, it's just a little bit strange that-"

"Anything, even the sight of your naked torso, is a pleasanter sight than that sodding banana you're wearing," was Lily's curt and informative reply. "If you feel self-conscious about your underdeveloped body, however, I'll not look until you're dressed."

"Hey. _Hey_." That. That was going too far. "Who said anything about self-conscious?"

James took great pride in his appearance, being a rather handsome fellow, albeit in an unconventional way. In his physique he took just as much. His arms and shoulders had benefited greatly from several years spent atop a broom and hurling Quaffles across the Quidditch pitch, not to mention all those hours spent polishing silverware in detention. He was already tall, his weight and skin never fallen foul of his passion for junk food, and while he had never managed to obtain those perfectly sculpted abdominal muscles that he had heard girls were fond of, a nicely flat stomach was the next best thing. He didn't have any horrible birthmarks or disfigurements, wasn't horribly hairy, and he didn't have a freakish, disturbing navel like Sirius did (but didn't ever show anybody). And even though it was true that standing half-naked in front of Lily Evans (who, in spite of whatever everyday human flaws that existed in her personality, was to his eyes nothing short of aesthetic perfection) made James felt about as attractive as a one-eyed, pox-ridden hunchback with an obesity problem, his pride simply wouldn't allow him to let that show.

"You're utterly ridiculous," Lily concluded, and reluctantly got up from her comfortable spot. "Turn around, I'll take it off for you."

With no consideration for either James' feelings or his personal space, Lily walked over, grabbed hold of the zipper that travelled down the back of his banana costume and wrenched it down with considerable force. "If I want something done, I'll have to do it myself."

Her fingers brushed ever so slightly against his now bare and unprotected back, and James very nearly died on the spot.

"I can, er, undress myself, Evans," he protested weakly, very glad that Lily was standing behind him and couldn't see his face. Honourable he may have been, but James was still a man, and the idea of Lily Evans manhandling him into a state of undress was almost as arousing as the idea of doing the same to her. He wouldn't have been human if the thought of ripping that tiny little fairy dress off of her slender body and flinging her against the nearest wall hadn't occurred to him at least five million times. Except now wasn't the time to think about that in too much detail, nor was it the time to bask in the loveliness that was being undressed by Lily, because thoughts like that left a very tell-tale sign and he wasn't wearing an awful lot under that banana.

"Hey!"

James was snapped out of his musings by a sharp poke to the back and a very irritated girl. Turning around, he looked down at the redhead and was met by a pair of extremely put out eyes and a sulky little pout. "Are you listening to me at all or just standing there like a lemon? I told you to wriggle your way out."

"Uh. Sorry." James was discombobulated and teetering on the verge of becoming _very_ excited, but he managed to shove his head and torso out of the banana costume and push it down until it got stuck, so that it was gathered bizarrely around his hips and he looked like a moron.

"Hopeless, Potter, hopeless," said Lily in amusement, looking him up and down as he tried to pull the banana suit down his legs without accidentally taking his boxer shorts with them. She brightened visibly for the first time since he had wished for the removal of the stupid banana costume in the first place. "You know, you're not so underdeveloped after all."

"You did all this to see me in the nip?" James shook his head in mock disgust. "Hardly ladylike, Evans, I'm ashamed of you."

"You boys and your assumptions about girls," she scoffed, and gave him a wry smile. "You think we're all as pure as the driven snow and think only wholesome things. Not true. I think I have just as much right to appreciate a nearly naked boy as you do to appreciate a nearly naked girl, don't you think?"

"Pity there are no nearly naked girls around," he grunted, finally managing to divest himself of the banana suit completely, and kicking it violently towards Peter's bed. He was burning the dratted thing at the next available opportunity. "I don't see you offering to take off that fairy costume."

"Is that honest to goodness genuine muscle I'm spotting, Potter?" Lily suddenly squeaked, all wide eyed and plainly ignoring what he had just said, if her suddenly pink cheeks were any indication. She reached out and squeezed his upper arm, much to his surprise. "Rock solid, too. Oh. Oh _wow_."

"I'm actually bowled over," said James, to nobody and nothing in particular.

"Wow," Lily repeated, now poking his tummy. "James, you got all… manly."

"Well, yeah, I'm sort of... not eleven anymore." James was blushing more obviously than he ever had done in his life, it was mortifying.

"And your hands, too," Lily continued, completely ignoring James in favour of, well, James. "Your hands are so _big_ now." She looked up at him. "You could carry somebody my weight easily, Potter, couldn't you?"

"… Do you _want_ me to carry you?"

Like most people in love, James would never be convinced that Lily liked him back unless she plainly told him so to his face, and since she had never done so his little suspicions were only indication enough in the moment, before days passed and they got swamped by massive amounts of self-doubt and rationalization. James could suspect all he liked that his feelings were reciprocated, but generally he could admit to himself that he was really only imagining it.

No matter how wrong he didn't know he was.

"Oh, not now," said Lily dismissively, once again absorbed in poking his stomach. "I'm too busy adjusting to the fact that time passed and you grew up. I heard before that it happened but, y'know, you never really pay too much attention until you're looking at a half-naked man who was five foot nothing and skinnier than a broomstick just ten minutes ago."

"I suppose you could call that a shock to the system," said James dryly, having long since accepted the fact that Lily had developed breasts and a bottom and a certain sway in her hips when she walked that made it difficult for him to swallow his breakfast when she breezed past him in the Great Hall every morning. It hadn't exactly been a difficult revelation to deal with. "Are you trying to make me uncomfortable or something, Lil?"

"Oh, undoubtedly," she said brightly, giving him a big smile. "Since you are apparently so dead set on standing around in your boxer shorts for the rest of the night –good choice, by the way, I hate briefs on a man."

"So you think I'm a man." James thrust a fist into the air and grinned cheekily at her. "Progress."

"Yeah yeah, Bruce Wayne, put some clothes on before I go blind."

"Blind with _lust_," James scoffed loudly, even though he himself had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and pushed her gently in the direction of his bed. "And don't even think about watch me change, I'm a very sensitive boy, you know."

Lily said nothing in response, but sat down on the bed and demurely covered her eyes with her hand as James dressed himself in the outfit she had picked out for him, clearly peeking through her fingers. When he had finally clothed himself, she took her hand away and looked him up and down with a critical eye indeed.

"Much better than that banana," she finally concluded, smiling the self-satisfied smile of one who had done a fabulous job, and knew it. "You're almost handsome in it."

"Cheers." James couldn't see what was so great about a red shirt and a pair of jeans, but Lily was clearly the one with the passion for fashion in this scenario, so he wouldn't question it. If she thought he looked good, he wasn't going to complain. "I'm almost grateful."

"You lie, you lie." Lily waved his words away and grinned up at him from her spot on his bed. "Of course you're grateful. If it wasn't for me, you'd still be downstairs, wallowing in self-pity, trying your best to look tortured and failing because you look absurd."

"If it wasn't for me," James responded, quick as a whip. "_You'd_ still be downstairs, pretending to listen to Harding's self-important tripe because you couldn't bear to be impolite and tell him to toss off and leave you alone."

"I'm only ever impolite to _you_, honey," Lily responded silkily, batting her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.

"Only because we know each other so well and you love me _so_, darling."

"I wouldn't be missing my best friend's birthday party if I wasn't here, you know."

"You _chose_ to come up here and take me with you."

"I only did that because you desperately needed a different costume and I don't have the heart to let you die of embarrassment."

"Call this a costume?" James lay down on the bed next to Lily and looked up at her, pulling at the fabric of his jumper, just in case she was short sighted and under the impression that she had picked out something different. "I was expecting something a bit more imaginative than this, Evans, maybe an old timey white shirt with an open collar that could billow impressively in the wind as I stood around looking manly, waiting for a damsel to save. And a sword," he suggested, as an afterthought. "I'd look good with a sword."

"You'd look like a ponce!" Lily exclaimed, laughing, while James stretched his limbs and crossed his arms beneath his head. "I couldn't sleep at night for shame, if I'd done that to you."

"I'd look like the manliest of men, Lily Evans, and you know it," he argued stubbornly, bursting with self-importance. "I didn't ask to be born beautiful, you know, it just happened. It's a curse, living with it every day, feeling bad because those around me are destined to mediocrity whilst I am fit to shine in the palaces of kings. But I don't complain, Evans," he said seriously, gazing up at her with the most earnest expression he could muster, all the while thinking that he was making a tit out of himself and she was never going to talk to him again and Merlin, even though Lily Evans was sitting on his bed, all he could talk about was himself. "I do not, even when girls demand to feel my arm muscle because the mere thought of it sends them spinning into dizzying satisfaction."

"Your muscle isn't all that impressive," was Lily's dry response, even as she gave his arm another squeeze. "You were so deflated after the banana suit, I just didn't want to damage your masculine pride and say so."

"You've damaged my masculine pride so viciously and often that I'm entirely impervious to your words."

"Does that apply only to insults and put-downs or will you ignore any compliments I might feel like throwing your way?"

"Oh, I'll take the compliments, any and all. Feel free to start now."

"That's a double standard."

"So, I'm a hypocrite," he concluded, and grinned up at Lily's look of disapproval. "You could call me out on it, but we've already established that I'm disregarding your callous words intended to hurt, so I wouldn't bother if I were you."

"You stupid arse," Lily scoffed, and ruffled his hair before getting up off the bed and brushing invisible dust off her dress, thus giving James, who was still lying on the bed, a fine view of her bottom and the silky looking pants she was wearing underneath that tiny little skirt, which made him sit up like a shot, which gave him a head rush. "Come to the kitchens with me, I want some chips."

"There's a wide array of snacks downstairs," James pointed out, squeezing his eyes shut while the pain passed. "And it's your best friend's birthday party. Won't she miss you?"

"Mary has Eddie," said Lily, fluffing her hair and fixing her dress. "I think she's good."

"Oh yeah, she's still with him." James didn't really understand the deal between Lily's best friend and her boyfriend. As far as James knew, Mary and Eddie had been mortal enemies for most of their school careers because of a row during first year when Eddie had made fun of Lily for not knowing what Quidditch was and Mary sprang viciously to her defence, and then one day they were just… together. Bang. Poof. No explanation required. "They're still going strong then, huh?"

"Oh definitely, even though Mary will lie and tell you they're on the verge of breaking up any day now," Lily explained airily, as if this wasn't a rather strange thing to say. "They really love each other, you know, they just won't admit it to one another. Or to anybody else, for that matter."

"Why?" he asked, still sitting on the bed and staring up at Lily, genuinely curious. "If they both feel the same way about one another, why bother keeping it a secret? Aren't they just lying to themselves otherwise?"

"Not everyone is as emotionally healthy and trigger-happy as _you_, James," Lily pointed out, although not unkindly. "This is obviously just conjecture, but in Eddie's case I'm pretty sure it's because he knows that Mary won't let him. He's afraid that if he tells her he loves her at anything other than the absolutely perfect time, she'll freak out and slap him, or break up with him. So he's treading on eggshells right now."

"And Mary?"

"Mary..." Lily frowned to herself, and faltered a little before she could continue to speak. "Mary is a very strong person, and she's used to relying on herself, so I guess she finds it hard to trust people, especially men. She's had a few bad experiences, and maybe a different kind of person would have let them slide, but she's just not like that. Deep down, she knows she can trust Eddie, but she still doesn't want to. She's just…" She shrugged, appearing to be a little bit uncomfortable. "She's just really scared."

James frowned back. He had never thought of Mary MacDonald in that respect, she had always seemed so capable and confident and so, well, so like Lily, really. "Sounds like you've given this a lot of thought."

"Yeah, well," said Lily lightly, as if they were discussing a matter of no real importance, but her eyes were boring directly into his and for some reason, it made him feel nervous. "She and I are alike in that respect."

"Oh really?" he replied, with a curious raise of the eyebrow.

"As like as two peas, Potter. We understand one another. See, what you have to realize about Mary is that despite all of her hang-ups, she's not stupid. She'll get over it eventually, well," she paused, and gave a short, pretty little laugh. "You know, Potter, I think she already has."

"Well, if she _has_ gotten over it," said James slowly, chewing over the matter, which seemed so simple and easy to fix in his mind. "What's to keep her from telling him how she really feels?"

"Maybe because she's pushed him away so much before, she feels like she doesn't deserve him," she suggested quietly, and with an exaggerated shrug that seemed hastily added to keep the tone of the conversation a little lighter.

"And what about you?" he pressed on. "Do you think she deserves him?"

She paused, and locked eyes with him. "I think _Mary_ does."

"Oh."

Once again, James was struck by the feeling that he was missing something, something really important, and it was just there in front of him to see if only he could. He felt like he'd been missing out on something since Lily had first approached him, like he needed to hole away by himself for a few minutes and go over everything in his head so he could grasp whatever the hell was going on. Whatever that thing was, he suspected, Lily was a lot more clued in on it than he was.

The moment passed, though, when Lily spun on her heel and skipped over to his bedroom door with renewed vigour. Evidently, the deep and meaningful conversations had ended for the night.

"C'mon, idiot," she called over her shoulder. "Kitchens. Food. You need to think of a second wish."

**A/N: WHAM! Next update won't be for a few days because I'm going to my cousin's for the weekend and leaving my laptop behind. Ah, Lizzie, do not miss me.**


	3. Wish Two

**Author's Note: You guys are so lovely. Thank you so much for the sweet reviews and nice words. I know some of you weren't happy about James' costume, and I assure you that Lily would normally have put him in something grand, but he missed her obvious hint and she was pissed – you'd hardly want to put effort in after an ego bashing like that, right?**

**This fic remains dedicated to Emily, who told me to stop flattering her, so I won't. Emily, seriously, even though you are way hotter than Tom Felton, I hope he dumps his two-bit girlfriend for a slice of your warm apple pie, if you know what I'm saying.**

**Sorry this took so long, I actually scrapped the entire chapter I had written (it sucked) in order to replace it with this. I think it works a lot better this way, although it's still not fabulous. I want to give special love and thanks to my darling best pal Leonie, who inspired James' wish for this chapter a very long time ago.**

**Wish Two**

"Oi, hang on a second, Evans!"

In spite of James' demand, Lily did not listen to him and loped out the door, probably in a hurry to get her mitts on some chips. James would not have said no to some chips, either, but even he thought it was a bad idea for Lily to go roaming the school after hours, since she wasn't in possession of what he and Sirius liked to call 'street smarts'.

And by 'street smarts', James was thinking of his map and his cloak.

"You can't just roam around the school at night without knowing if there are teachers around!" James hollered again, quickly scrambling up from his bed and racing after her. Terrifying visions of being forever held responsible as the man who had influenced Lily Evans to blight her otherwise pristine school record danced threateningly through his head. "That's a one way ticket to deten-"

He grunted in pain as Lily flew back into the room unexpectedly and barrelled straight into his middle, completely knocking the wind out of him in the process. The force at which she collided with him sent them both flying, but he managed to keep his balance before he fell backwards and took her with him, unthinkingly grabbing her around the waist to keep her steady.

Lily, who had clutched the front of his shirt, as a reflex, he supposed, started to giggle like a loon. She seemed unhurt, which meant that she had fared better than James, who was finding it rather difficult to breathe.

"Oops!" she said giddily, very pink in the face, with his shirt still held firmly in her grasp. She looked up at him, and her laughter died a little, concern filling her eyes when she saw the pained expression on his face. "Oh God, did I hurt you?"

"Me, hurt? Pah," James hissed, his stomach contracting in pain and his chest tight from lack of air. Lily had walloped him right in the gut with a vengeance; he felt like falling to the ground and curling up in a tiny little ball but he would not show such weakness in front of her. He was a man, and men didn't resort to the foetal position when the chips were down. "Never. Why'd you… ugh." Pain, so much pain. "Why'd you come running back like that?"

"Because, James," she said, frowning up at him as she let go of his shirt, clearly not fooled by his protestations of physical wellness. "You can't just roam around the school at night without knowing if there are teachers around; that's a one way ticket to detention."

"Novel idea there, Evans," he grunted.

"So anyway, it occurred to me as I was going downstairs that we needed to take your map with us."

"My… My _what_?" Unable to handle the pain in his stomach while he was standing, James sat down heavily on Remus' bed, which was the nearest available surface. He must have looked very attractive as he stared goggle-eyed at Lily, who did not seem to be aware that she had just dropped a bombshell on him and was more preoccupied with looking him over concernedly.

Perhaps she hadn't dropped a bombshell, and he was just imagining things. There was no way on earth that Lily Evans could have known about the Marauder's Map , because nobody had told her about it. If anything, James was the most likely out of the four boys to tell her about it, and even he knew better than that.

"How'd you, ugh," he groaned, nearly doubling over. "How'd you know about the map?"

"Oh, you poor baby, I _did_ hurt you," she pouted, and both immediately and inexplicably sat down next to him and started to rub his tummy, which was very pleasant but did nothing to soothe his frazzled nerves. "I actually caught Peter using it last year. You and Sirius were in detention; he was sneaking out to see you."

"What, when and _how_?" James was stumped that he hadn't heard of this. Peter usually couldn't keep a secret to save his life. "He never said anything to us about it."

"Yeah, I know," Lily sighed. "He let slip that he was only using the map because you wouldn't let him use your Invisibility Cloak, so -"

"YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?" James really shouldn't have shouted when his lungs were temporarily robbed of their ability to function properly. A sharp, stabbing pain brought him back down to earth and he hissed sharply.

"Well, I knew that if _you_ knew _I_ knew, we'd have to have a confrontation about it and I didn't really want that, so I told him that if he told you I knew about the map, I'd tell you he'd told me about the cloak," Lily babbled, but she had the good grace to look guilty. "Although I guess I just did tell you. Shit."

"Fucking little rat never said," James murmured bitterly, and looked down at Lily's hand, which was still gently caressing his stomach. It struck him that this was way, way more important than Peter's accidental blabbing, and he might as well enjoy it to the fullest.

"It really hurts, Lily," he pouted, adopting a wounded expression. Lily laughed, but not unkindly.

"What hurts, darling?" she asked, resting her cheek against her shoulder while she rubbed his affected stomach. This small, affectionate act made him smile. "Peter's callous betrayal of your precious secret, or those manly abdominals of yours?"

James laughed, too. "My stomach, Evans. You bashed it pretty hard."

She winced. "M'sorry."

"Nah, it's fine," he assured her. "If you hadn't come back in, you would have run off like a psychopath and risked your perfect, untarnished record for the sake of chips. What would I have done if you'd ended up earning your first ever detention on my watch?"

"Excuse me?" Lily snorted; he could feel the vibration of her silent laughter against his shoulder. "I've gotten a detention before, Potter."

"What?" He would have nudged her off his shoulder so he could look at her and give her some sort of irritating smirk, but he was enjoying the stomach rub too much. "How come I never knew about this?"

"I was fourteen, you were my mortal enemy," she said, with a giggle. "I would have jumped off a cliff or burned my own eyelids before letting you find out."

"What did you do to get a detention?" he asked, curious.

"Nothing," she replied hastily. "Minor indiscretion. How's your stomach?"

James' tummy was feeling fit to enter a race, bounce on a trampoline and sign up for the next World War, and as much as he would have liked to sit there being massaged by Lily Evans for the rest of his natural born life, he suspected that she would only believe him to be in pain for so long. Besides, it was twenty to eleven already, and he had two more wishes to go before midnight.

"It's fine now. What'd you do?"

"Nothing."

"What'd you do?"

"No-_thing_."

"_Lily_," he whined. "The way you omit such things makes my tummy worse."

"Shush, you!" she demanded, immediately stopped rubbing his stomach and slapped his hand instead, but without any real force. "Have you thought of a second wish yet?"

"James considered wishing for her to reveal why she had gotten a detention, but that was something he could find out from Mary or Alice. No point in wasting a wish on that.

Actually," he said, stretching his arms above his head. "Now that I'm no longer scared of putting a pox on your perfect school record, I think I'll go all out on wish two. Think of something really spiffing, you know?"

"Nobody uses the word spiffing any more, James," said Lily, looking up at him with something like reminiscent of fondness in her eyes, maybe. "How terribly geriatric of you."

"It's young and fresh," James argued, scowling down at her pretty face. "All the cool kids are using it these days."

Lily gave another snort. "Cheyuh, Dumbledore's so trendy and with the times."

"Those spangled purple robes of his are a breakthrough in wizarding style," said James, attempting to pull off an affected little sniff, and failing. "I have some just like it."

"If I had found robes like those in your drawer, Potter," said Lily, pointing at his dresser, which now resembled a bomb site. "I would walked right out of the room in disgust."

"Just leaving me here with the banana?"

"Yup."

"And told tales of my freakish secret love of garish millinery far and wide?"

"Absolutely, dear."

"And never spoken to me again?"

"Not ever," she agreed solemnly. "What's your wish?"

"My wish?" He screwed up his eyes and pretended to think hard, even though he already had a good idea about what to wish for. Something outrageous and stupid, or dangerous, would be even better. Something that she would look back on in shame when she was old and grey. Something that she would still be mad at him for in years to come. Something that Lily Evans would never do.

"My wish is that you, Lily Evans," he said, slowly, so as to build a suitable anticipatory air around the situation. "Will come with me right now…"

He trailed off, always a man of mystery.

"… and?" said Lily, after several seconds of patient waiting, looking as if she'd like to clock this particular man of mystery right in the jaw.

"And steal McGonagall's tartan biscuit tin from her office," James finished proudly, with a triumphant grin. "How'd you like _that_ idea?"

Lily must have liked his idea, really liked it, in fact, because she burst out laughing.

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me, Potter?" she squeaked, red faced, looking at him as if he truly had lost his mind. It was testament to how ridiculous she thought it was, because Lily always made a point to at least _try_ to avoid using crass words. "Steal McGonagall's biscuit tin?"

"Yep."

"From her office?"

"Yep."

"Even though she'll be _sleeping_ in there, and will have who knows what manner of magical guards around the place?"

"Pfft," James did not care for such protestations, he was a Marauder, after all. He scoffed loudly and ruffled his hair in a self-important manner. "Mere trifles, Evans. She's got a separate bedroom, and I'd hardly think she's booby trapped her office; it's the dullest office in the school. Nobody in their right mind would want to break in there."

"Except for maniacs like you, apparently," Lily argued back, the delight and excitement of her countenance clearly visible no matter how hard she tried to hide it. She was looking forward to doing this, no matter what she might have thought to tell James. "You could have thought of three really cracking wishes, but _no_, it's divest you of a banana suit and steal a poxy tin of ginger snaps. One day, Potter, I'm going to snap and kill you out of sheer frustration."

"Sexual frustration, obviously," he put in, unable to resist doing the typical teenage boy thing and sticking in a bad joke.

"They'll find you knifed to death on your kitchen floor, not even killed by magic. I'll do it the Muggle way, out of spite, and when they put me in Azkaban I'll still maintain that I'd do it all over again, if I could."

"Complain all you want about my preferred activities, Evans. Your life would be lacking without me."

"It wouldn't be lacking in anything particularly positive," said Lily, getting up from the bed and walking to the door, which James took to mean that she had agreed to grant his wish. "I think I could live without your presence in my life, to be perfectly honest. Things like meringues and shoelaces and nail polish, now, _they're_ things I couldn't live without. In comparison to them you're just..."

"Shut your trap, you shameless liar," he finished for her, catching up with her as she started down the stairs and putting his arm around her shoulders. "You'd be lost without me."

"You act so important," she said contentedly, as they entered the common room and heads turned in their direction. Immediately after, of course, the whispers began. "People are definitely going to talk, now."

"Particularly since I'm sporting a change of clothes," James agreed, nodding away happily. "It's your fault, midget, you just _had_ to get me alone. Now everybody is going to think you're my girlfriend."

It would have been a lie were James to say to himself that he wasn't happy about all of the attention they were garnering at that moment; in particular the look of jealousy that was slathered all over Robert Harding's face was like manna to a hungry soul. Judging by all of the thumbs up and knowing looks that were being sent in his direction, it seemed that his housemates were mostly still in support of the idea of an Evans/Potter union, which somehow, inexplicably, made James feel as if it were actually probable.

"Oh, but I really don't care," said Lily as they reached the portrait hole and she pushed it open, perfectly at ease with herself and the world. She waved over at Mary, who had just smooshed her ice cream sundae into her poor boyfriend's costume, but Eddie did not seem to mind; on the contrary, he was happily eating off his shirt. "I'm having such a good time with you, besides," she added quickly, perhaps to erase that unexpected compliment. "It might not be that bad, they might just assume that you're merely my little bitch boy and I used your body for the night."

"Heh," said James, pushing her gently out of the portrait hole and dodging a cloud of glitter that her huge fairy wings attacked him with. "You act so important."

She laughed.

Once they got out of the common room and fobbed the Fat Lady off with an excuse, it was several floors down to get to their Transfiguration professor's office, which was located on the first floor, while they were on the seventh. It was a walk that seemed to pass in mere minutes, however, as they chatted happily about unimportant things and debated silly topics. His walks around the school with Lily, although frequent now due to patrols, always seemed to pass away too quickly. Often James would be alarmed to learn that he had forgotten the time and allowed the two of them to ramble on slightly past curfew, even for Head students. Perhaps it was because he was so used to patrolling with Lily at night in an environment where they were allowed to be outside of the common room that he failed to realize that he had not brought his map or his cloak with him until they were a floor above McGonagall's office, when he suddenly stopped in his tracks outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"You won't believe what mess I've lead us into, Evans," he said loudly, far more loudly than he should have, given the circumstances. He laughed at himself. "I've forgotten the map."

"And your cloak," Lily offered helpfully, also stopping in her tracks and turning to face him with her arms crossed over her chest. "I noticed about twenty seconds after we left the common room."

"And you failed to tell me because... you're mentally subnormal?" he suggested, with a raised eyebrow.

"I figured if we got caught I could tell whoever found us that you kidnapped me and forced me to come with you," she said, shrugging. "It's believable, I think I've got a good shot."

"I can see how believable that is, since I'm always bossing you around and forcing you to bend to my will," he interjected, still laughing at himself and the situation, and also at the thought that Lily would ever allow herself to get bossed by anybody. "Christ, Evans, stop being such a doormat and grow some balls, you're far too easy to subjugate."

"I bet it'd work," she said squarely, standing up all prim and proper, a definite challenge in the gaze she directed at him. James snorted, and mirrored her pose of arms folded across the chest.

"Please, this is a school full of hormonally barbaric teenagers; if we got caught, they'd just think we snuck off to snog somewhere."

"Well, that's ridiculous," Lily scoffed loudly. "Snogging in the corridors. If you want to snog me, we can just do it in your dorm, why would we do it out here? It doesn't matter, anyway, because we're not going to get caught."

Silence.

"I'm sorry," he said, after a fashion, during which time his heart had stopped beating and had been jump started back into life by some bizarre miracle. He stuck a finger into one of his ears and mimicked an attempt to rid it of water in an exaggerated fashion. "What did you just say?"

"I said we're not going to get caught," she repeated slowly. "Don't you ever _listen_, Potter?"

"Nononono, not that," he said hurriedly, while Lily started avoiding his gaze and carefully examining her hair. "Not that. The other thing. The thing you said right before, what was that?"

"That was nothing, I just, oh," said Lily suddenly, as she looked up for the slightest second and caught sight of something over James' shoulder. The colour drained from her face, and she tensed up. "Oh. Oh. Oh, _crap_."

"What are you doing, Evans?" he began, confused, but got no answer, for Lily gave a small squeak and jumped behind an ugly looking stone gargoyle. Before James could even ask again, he got the answer he was looking for.

"Potter?"

There was no mistaking the booming, self-important voice that rang out loud and clear behind their backs, even if the speaker did appear to be thoroughly confused. James spun on his heel and simply stared at Professor Slughorn as the fat Potions professor advanced upon them; feeling uncharacteristically like a deer caught in the headlights because he had no map and no cloak, and was in the company of a girl who could cut and run on him at any given moment. This was why it was far more sensible to do these kinds of things with Sirius, a man needed a co-conspirator he could thoroughly rely on.

"What are you doing out here at this time of the night, m'boy?" called Slughorn, waddling towards them both at snail's pace and obviously not noticing Lily, who was still half-hidden by shadows and that hideous looking statue. In his peacock blue dressing gown and gold embroidered slippers, and with his peacock blue, gold trimmed nightcap to complete the ensemble, he cut a dashing figure. "Patrols ended hours ago, it's against the rules for... for..." he gasped, and even his nightcap fell off his head in surprise. "_Evans_?"

Perhaps Lily had been trying to sneak away or perhaps she had tired of being hidden and decided to show herself. Either way, one minute she hadn't been standing at James' side, and the next minute she was.

"Professor," she said, oddly flushed, voice wavering, as if she was teetering on the verge of a giddy fit. Or a nervous breakdown. "Shit."

Definitely a nervous breakdown, James decided silently. Slughorn's eyes widened in, if it were possible, even more shock than he had experienced already.

"P-p-p-pardon me?"

"Sorry, I meant… poppycock," Lily amended quickly, redder in the face than James had ever seen her.

"What on earth are the two of you doing, roaming the corridors at this hour of the night?" he said, gawping at Lily as if he could not believe his eyes as he finally stopped in front of the two of them, leaving his nightcap behind on the floor, the embroidery on his dressing gown glittering in the dim light of the torches. "I would have expected this from perhaps a year ago, Potter, but Miss Evans? I simply can't believe it!"

His was the voice of a man whose ideals had just been cruelly crushed by the world. "This is highly uncharacteristic of you, Lily. What on earth has possessed you to wander through the school after curfew?"

"Oh," said Lily blankly, and James had to check himself lest he laugh, because Lily was always saying that she could handle any situation that got thrown at her and now she was clearly struggling. "Oh, well, you see the thing is that I actually, um…"

"She's got her period, sir."

Both Slughorn and Lily turned their eyes on his face, and while Slughorn's gaze contained nothing more than purest bewilderment, Lily was looking at him as if he could expect to die shortly after they resumed their current conversation, in a slow and painful manner best befitted to rapists and mass murderers.

"I... what are you talking about, Potter?" said Slughorn, baffled.

"Yes, Potter," Lily hissed between her teeth, visibly seething with embarrassment. "_What_?"

Nonplussed, James shoved his hands into the pockets of his lovely jeans and balanced on the balls of his feet.

"She gets maniacal this time of the month, sir. Stark-raving mad. Like a hyena." He paused for thought. "A rabid one, you know, with rabies."

"I don't, I don't, how does this, what relevance..." Slughorn was muttering to himself, while Lily's eyes got wider and wider and wider. James' death would be prolonged and agonizing indeed.

"The hunger pangs are the worst, sir. She tears through the common room like a freight train roaring through the castle," he carried on, quite at his ease. James always excelled when it came to making up nonsense. "She steals food from the first years. It's awfully traumatising for them. I hardly think it's fair on myself, either, when I stop and think about it. It's hard enough to convince the student that gingers are people too without Evans here rampaging through the school like a maniac and nicking sandwiches from helpless eleven year old kids; I mean, I try, but I'm fighting an uphill battle most of the time, you know? Of course you know, you're in charge of Slytherin, hardly a house that's known for amiability. But I digress, what was I saying?"

"Merlin, boy, I don't know," said Slughorn, who seemed to have aged ten years. Lily was now trembling with fury.

"Huh." James frowned for a moment, until he recovered his original point. "Oh! Well, Lily was prowling around for food and I could tell it wouldn't be long before she transformed into a raging Chimera and sent us all to our fiery graves; you learn to recognize the signs - anyway, I agreed to accompany her to the kitchens. For the sake of the younger students, sir. I can't allow them suffer on my watch."

Slughorn was thoroughly lost now, and looked at Lily helplessly, as if he expected her to explain the nonsense to him, to lead him by the hand to salvation once more. Unfortunately, Lily was mentally dead. At least, it looked like she was.

"Miss Evans," he said faintly, wiping his forehead with a gold embroidered handkerchief that he had pulled from his gold embroidered pocket, and James had to stifle a laugh for a second time. "I don't know what to make of this. Is this... is this true?"

Struck dumb, Lily seemed as if she had not even noticed that Slughorn was still there, for she was still gazing at James. He had to elbow her in the side to wake her up, and she blinked rapidly several times before she seemed to get her bearings.

"I love food," she said blankly, her voice tiny, and in monotone. "It's edible."

"But if you were so very desperate to eat," Slughorn pressed on, apparently happy to accept her bizarre answers and not James'. "And believe me, Miss Evans, I understand the pangs, surely there was no reason for Potter to come along with you?"

"She's scared of the dark," James put in smoothly, as Lily seemed to flounder for words once more. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side, figuring that if she really was going to injure him beyond human recognition, he might as well do the job thoroughly. "Completely petrified. She's come sneaking into my bed after a nightmare more than once, although why she can't just go to Mary or Alice's bed when she shares a room with them and I'm all the way on the other side of the tower..."

"That's quite enough of an explanation, Mr Potter," Slughorn hurriedly interrupted them, looking ill. He gave Lily another once over, as she stood stock still and clamped against James' side, and shook his head confusedly. "But Evans, why on _earth_ are you dressed like _that_?"

James nearly swore out loud and had to bite his tongue to keep himself from doing it, just as he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from smacking himself in the forehead. He'd forgotten about the costume; there was no way on earth that they'd be able to keep the party a secret from the teachers now. There was no other possible reason for student to be prowling the corridors, or even staying in their common room, wearing an outfit like the one Lily had on. The students at Hogwarts didn't even dress up on Halloween itself; it was a Muggle costume that too many of the students either didn't know about or were willing to ignore.

"Potter made me wear it," said Lily, having recovered herself. It was James' turn to die of shock now.

"Eh?"

"Potter made you?" Slughorn looked at James in disbelief.

"Sir," began Lily, her eyes wide and innocent, lashes all a flutter, lips pouting. She had smoothly shifted gears to vulnerable Lily mode, and James knew from experience that men were powerless to resist. He had lost many a last biscuit or given up many comfortable seats by the fire because of that look lately. "Everybody else was asleep; I didn't want to wake anyone, but I really was _so_ hungry and the dark is so _very_ scary. I don't like to admit it because it's so very foolish and I am a Gryffindor and we're supposed to be valiant by nature, but such irrational fears are to be expected in a person, right?"

"Right," said Slughorn, sounding dazed.

"I asked Potter to come with me and he said he would, but only if I dressed like him to satiate his lustful desires," she finished tragically. "He's a sexual deviant, sir."

There was a silence. It was long and uncomfortable, the kind of silence that might often follow a late night conversation between student and teacher concerning the Head Boy and his tendencies towards sexual deviancy.

"I see," said Slughorn, after a fashion, and he finally looked as if he could comprehended the situation. "I see indeed, Evans. So you would allow a sexual deviant to accompany you places in the dark and put his arm around you?"

"I, er," Lily, most bizarrely, looked to James for help with the scenario. "I guess so?"

"She likes it, sir," said James happily, giving Lily a good-natured smack on the bottom, to which she went bright red and squeaked like a little field mouse.

Slughorn raised an eyebrow, or more accurately, tried to raise one eyebrow and ended up raising two.

"I'm so sorry, professor," said Lily earnestly, all of a sudden, and James didn't know if she was apologizing for his words just then or for the entire evening. "We should know better than to go sneaking around the school for food after curfew and it will never happen again. Also, incidentally, I do not like it one whit, sir. Potter shouldn't speak for other people."

"Oh, of course, of course," said Slughorn genially. He now seemed to be in a better mood. "In any case, something like this deserves punishment, and I simply cannot let it go unnoticed."

""Oh, yes sir, of course," said Lily earnestly.

"So, let's see," he continued, tapping his chin with his finger and considering the matter thoroughly. "Perhaps your punishment should be that you attend my next Slug Club meeting together. You know, I'm planning a little Halloween get-together for Monday night, and I have some very important people coming. I was rather hoping that our Head students would _both_ be in attendance in order to greet them."

James very nearly groaned. He was always being invited to Slug Club meetings and never went, but Lily, who always did, elbowed him sharply in the ribs and nodded her head vigorously. "Of course we will, professor. I'll make sure James turns up, too; I'll take him with me personally."

"Well," said Slughorn, beaming at James as if he had gotten all he wanted from this conversation, and James felt once more like a prize fool. Finding him sneaking around outside school hours was probably exactly what Slughorn had been hoping for. "I think that settles the matter, and we should all be heading back to our beds, don't you?"

"Oh, definitely," Lily agreed, still nodding away. "We'll go back to Gryffindor tower right now."

Slughorn smiled indulgently, turned back around and walked off in the direction from which he had came. "Incidentally," he called over his shoulder. "Should you ever feel like eating again, I'd suggest you do it in the privacy of your own dormitory, yes? Goodnight, you two."

"Goodnight, professor."

"Night, sir."

They stood in as they watched Professor Slughorn waddle his way down the corridor, although who knew why the Potions professor was plodding along the school in his fancy pyjamas after dark, and waited until he had ambled round a corner and appeared to be out of earshot. As soon as he did, Lily rounded on him, eyes dancing in amusement.

"You shit!" she accused, which James supposed might have been a step up from 'arrogant toerag', one of Lily's old favourites, and smacked him on the nose with her wand for the second time that night. "That was so _not_ the way to deal with that situation."

"I was smooth back there, Evans, admit it. If I'd been relying on you to get us out of trouble we'd have detention slips in our hands right now."

That was not necessarily true, since Slughorn had pounced on the Slug Club punishment so quickly, but James wasn't about to own up to that.

"The only smooth thing about you is the way lies slide from your greasy tongue, you shameless prat," she berated him, although without any sting, because she was trying very hard not to laugh. "Since when have I stolen food from first years?"

"Lily," said James simply. "You're always stealing food from the first years."

"Well... yes, but I don't _threaten_ them. You, mister, are taking great liberties with the truth."

"Because you never exaggerate to suit your own means, huh?"

"And, and, and," she pointed an accusatory finger right in his face, face flushed and eyes sparkling. "You used Slughorn being here as an excuse to feel me up, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, Evans," he said smugly. Like that was ever even a question. Lily gasped as if scandalized, but her indignation was completely feigned. In fact, she looked happier than James had seen her this whole evening. He grabbed the hand that was looming in front of his face and held it captive, grinning down at her. Having successfully dodged punishment from a teacher and most certainly saved Lily from meeting a similar fate, James was feeling a lot more confident. "I'm a man, it's my duty."

"To sexually harass unsuspecting girls when you know they can't stop you?"

"To sexually harass unsuspecting girls when you know they secretly like it."

"That's a very presumptuous statement you just made, Potter," she levelled at him, narrowing her eyes.

"Isn't it?" James was unconcerned. "And yet, you haven't stormed off in a huff. You're still just standing there, smiling like a loon, letting me hold your hand..."

"It grates against my soul to stay here, with you, after what you've just done to me," she insisted dully, pulling her hand from his grasp. She was, indeed, still smiling. "Alas, I must grant you that wish, and then a third, before I can escape your evil clutches and return to normalcy."

"You poor thing," he cooed. "I guess we should get this wish over with quickly before you die of unhappiness right here in the middle of the corridor, huh?"

"I think that would be wise."

"McGonagall's office it is, then?" suggested James tenuously, lest Lily actually be in the mind to tell him to suggest a different wish, since, they had already been caught by one of their teachers tonight and Slughorn was generally known to be the most lenient of the lot. McGonagall would not let their transgressions slide so very easily. "Or do you want me to pick something else?"

"No, there's no need," replied Lily simply, shaking her head from side to side. "McGonagall's office it is."

So he guessed they were going to McGonagall's office, after all.

"Right, Evans, on your broom," he said, patting her bottom once more for good luck before taking hold of her arm and gently steering her down the corridor. "I don't know about you, but I've got a _really_ strong craving for ginger biscuits."

**A/N: KAPOW! That was all just filler and nonsense. The real stuff begins next chapter and then it will be less carefree for a little while. I think it'll be five or six chapters with an epilogue. Wish me luck!**


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